Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread

TLDR version:

This is the law-enforcement omnibus thread. Discuss controversial shootings, tasings, pepper-sprayings, arrests, and other police encounter here. It's in the Pit because these discussions sometimes get heated.

Full version:

I figured someone would probably do it eventually, so i figured that it might as well be me.

There are currently four threads on the front page of the Pit discussing violent incidents between law enforcement officers and civilians. Some folks have begun suggesting, both in those threads and in a now-closed ATMB thread, that maybe starting a new discussion for every single new incident might be a rather unproductive task. Or at least a rather repetitive one. Hence this thread.

Now, it could be that people will tell me to take a hike, arguing that they should be allowed to start as many damn threads as they like about this stuff. And if that's the consensus, then by all means ignore this thread and let it sink.

There are reasonable arguments to be made against what i'm doing here. Some folks might worry, for example, that having an omnibus thread for these sorts of incidents will result in individual cases not receiving the in-depth discussion that they deserve. This might especially be true for long-running, high-profile cases like the Ferguson shooting. Others might be concerned that "ghettoizing" all such incidents to a single thread runs the risk of reducing their visibility, and minimizing or even trivializing their serious nature.

I am sensible of these concerns, and i am sure that there might be other objections. Still, i think that this might be worth a shot (first pun of the thread!), even if we sometimes also end up with separate threads for particularly important cases.

One of my motivations in starting a single thread for such incidents is to connect the specific with the universal. I believe that each incident of conflict or violence is unique and deserves to be assessed on its merits. I also believe, however, that issues such as the use of police authority in our society, and the significance of race and social class in shaping encounters between law enforcement and civilians, constitute broad structural problems that are reflected not only in each individual encounter, but in the totality of relations between police and citizens. We need to have the individual discussions, but we also need to talk about the big picture.

For example, even if a full and fair and complete investigation in the Ferguson case were to find that the officer did not violate any police regulation and did not violate the law, i still believe that there is a very good chance that the officer's response to the situation reflected problematic assumptions and a law enforcement attitude that treats crime committed by some groups as requiring more attention and a more confrontational approach than very similar crimes committed by other groups. I also believe that the Ferguson Police Department's response to the initial incident demonstrates some problems with the department itself, problems that are independent of whatever may or may not have happened on the street that day. That is, even when individual cases might not rise to the level of abuse of authority or illegal activity on the part of the police, the pattern of policing might still reflect very problematic attitudes within law enforcement, and might also, as part of a broader pattern, constitute an abuse of the civil liberties of particular sections of the community, and demonstrate systemic problems within police departments.

Structural problems are important. For example, every low-level contact with a black youth might go completely by the book, with no violence and no infringements on individual liberties, but if the cops carrying out those contacts fail to make similar contact with white youth under similar circumstances, i think that we as a society have the right to ask them why they work this way, and require them to change their practices. And if cops use guns or tasers or pepper-spray on some groups more than others, under similar circumstances, we should ask the same questions. Books i've read recently on race and the American justice system (Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow; Randall Kennedy, Race, Crime, and the Law) note that courts in America have been reluctant to interfere in broad policing strategies, even when those strategies seem to unfairly target particular racial or ethnic groups, but that doesn't mean that we as a society need ignore those issues, and nor does it mean that we can't pressure our law enforcement agencies to eliminate structural biases.

I'm not starting this thread only for people who agree with me, of course, and i don't consider myself anti-cop. My stepfather is a retired cop (rank of Inspector), and i think that a good police officer is an incredibly valuable member of civil society. But we also need to hold law enforcement accountable for how they do their job; their role is not simply to control us and order us around, but to protect and serve.

I think it would behoove people on all sides of this debate to try to evaluate the evidence fairly, in each individual case and in the broader arena of social policy. Try not to assume, in every incident, that the cop was a redneck just looking for an excuse to mow down a civilian, and try not to assume, in every incident, that the discharge of a police weapon is, by itself, sufficient evidence that the civilian bleeding on the ground had it coming.

That's all i've got. If you think this thread is useful, start adding incidents to it as they happen; if not, let it fall. If it attracts interest and content, i'll try, every week or so, to make a new post listing all incidents recorded so far, so that we have a running digest that people can consult without going back and reading the whole thread.
1

I'm sure soon the usual suspects will be along to explain why it's legal and reasonable for a cop to steal someone's money and pepper spray his wife for the offense of asking for a badge number. (They won't say it's because the "perps" were black, but that's a big part of it.)

As for why the cop was so tubby - and in the other thread where there's a link to two fat cops beating up a kid - actually, there's a reason for that; it's very hard to fire unionized employees for any reason short of criminal activity. Police forces TRY to have fitness standards but enforcing them is very, very difficult. If a person is fit enough to join the force but later on puts on eighty pounds of donut weight you can't just fire them; there are 25 different legal and contractual barriers the cop (or other employee in any unionized government job) can throw in front of you.

Police forces would absolutely love to only have fit cops, but practically speaking it's very hard to do.
7

This seems like the appropriate place to link to John Oliver's piece on Civil Asset Forfeiture. Apparently the cops can take your stuff based on little more than suspicion that you're using it for illegal purposes, and it's the devil to get it back again - the burden's on you to prove that your money, your house, your car, whatever weren't being used for some criminal purpose.

How this sort of thing isn't an unconstitutional taking is beyond my comprehension.
9

It's a depressing thought, but I'm willing to bet that this thread ends up with as many posts as the on-going "Stupid Republican Idea of the Day" thread, which currently stands at 17,326 posts. Non-corrupt, non-racist cops are rarer than unicorns these days, it seems.
10

This seems like the appropriate place to link to John Oliver's piece on Civil Asset Forfeiture. Apparently the cops can take your stuff based on little more than suspicion that you're using it for illegal purposes, and it's the devil to get it back again - the burden's on you to prove that your money, your house, your car, whatever weren't being used for some criminal purpose.

How this sort of thing isn't an unconstitutional taking is beyond my comprehension.

The prosecutors in our jurisdiction get several free multi-day trainings, including a long weekend at the beach for their families. All paid for by forfeitures. Meanwhile, our agency has to beg, borrow and steal to get us 6 hours of free training a year... which only accounts for half of the credits we need yearly. Balls. 12

This seems like the appropriate place to link to John Oliver's piece on Civil Asset Forfeiture. Apparently the cops can take your stuff based on little more than suspicion that you're using it for illegal purposes, and it's the devil to get it back again - the burden's on you to prove that your money, your house, your car, whatever weren't being used for some criminal purpose.

How this sort of thing isn't an unconstitutional taking is beyond my comprehension.

Oh, I doubt they're rare (or indeed less than a clear majority). We just don't notice them going about their jobs without incident.

No doubt. The great majority of everybody are decent, hard-working people who wish ill of no-one. But it seems like bad cops have escalated from the odd chicken-shit ticket and donut-stealing to open shake-downs and murder.
17

No doubt. The great majority of everybody are decent, hard-working people who wish ill of no-one. But it seems like bad cops have escalated from the odd chicken-shit ticket and donut-stealing to open shake-downs and murder.

Nope. They have always been this way. If you were black, Puerto Rican or poor. There was never any recourse. No one believed us when we complained about the treatment we were receiving. Or they didn't care. Or blamed us.

The only difference is the video proof. And even with the video proof, people still blame us. Or don't care.
18

No doubt. The great majority of everybody are decent, hard-working people who wish ill of no-one. But it seems like bad cops have escalated from the odd chicken-shit ticket and donut-stealing to open shake-downs and murder.

I know this doesn't apply to all cops, or even most cops, but you have to think that there is a certain category of people drawn to this profession in order to "kick some criminal ass". We clearly need to do a better job screening, but I doubt we'll ever rid the system of those people.
19

I watched that the other day, and it was a really nice piece, as was the Washington Post article linked by llcoolbj77.

It's interesting that this stuff is suddenly getting so much publicity because, as Bone suggests, it's being going on for years. I know that libertarians get pretty short shrift here at the SDMB, but libertarian groups such as the Cato Institute have been complaining about the injustice of things like civil forfeiture and abuses of eminent domain for quite a long time. Back in 2010, the Institute for Justice published a report, “Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture" (pdf), which took a state-by-state look at the abuses of this process.

Some states have passed their own laws against abuses of asset forfeiture, but as the report i linked above shows, many police departments get around these state laws by calling in federal agencies like the DEA or FBI, and then splitting the proceeds of asset forfeiture with them. Paul's bill would also make this illegal.

I don't agree with Rand Paul about too many things, but this is one area where he's actually taking the lead in Congress, and i hope he's successful. He introduced a bill in July that would change the way that asset forfeiture works, requiring the government to actually prove it's case before it gets to take your stuff. Also, the revenue from asset forfeiture would go into the state's general fund, rather than directly to police departments, reducing the direct financial incentive for cops to abuse the system.
22

This seems like the appropriate place to link to John Oliver's piece on Civil Asset Forfeiture. Apparently the cops can take your stuff based on little more than suspicion that you're using it for illegal purposes, and it's the devil to get it back again - the burden's on you to prove that your money, your house, your car, whatever weren't being used for some criminal purpose.

How this sort of thing isn't an unconstitutional taking is beyond my comprehension.

This nothing compared to what the IRS can do, since they aren't even law enforcement officials. Not condoning it, but just noting that this problem is a lot larger than we probably think.
23

I know that libertarians get pretty short shrift here at the SDMB, but libertarian groups such as the Cato Institute have been complaining about the injustice of things like civil forfeiture and abuses of eminent domain for quite a long time.

Following the lead of long-established civil libertarians such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who have been doing the scut work of documenting such injustices and bringing lawsuits about them starting over a half-century before anybody even thought of the Cato Institute.

The ACLU: Protecting your civil liberties from the government, without wasting time on self-aggrandizing government-bashing anti-tax "libertarian theater", since 1920.25

Following the lead of long-established civil libertarians such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who have been doing the scut work of documenting such injustices and bringing lawsuits about them starting over a half-century before anybody even thought of the Cato Institute.

The ACLU: Protecting your civil liberties from the government, without wasting time on self-aggrandizing government-bashing anti-tax "libertarian theater", since 1920.

One of the most interesting things about working at the NRA was watching the strange bedfellows unite, for instance, the libertarians and hard-core law enforcement types. They really rubbed poorly against each other, even in their quest for common gains.
27

While this is a police bashing thread, I want to point out credit where credit is due. The South Carolina State police released the Officer Groubert/Lavar Jones video THEMSELVES then fired and pressed charges on Groubert pretty damn quick. Which means someone in the upper brass in the SC State police saw that video and decided "we don't want this guy on our police force". It wasn't knee-jerk defend their cop.

This is what we WANT our police forces to do. So credit where credit is due.
29

Yes, absolutely. It's unlikely he was an outlier, though. It would be even easier to give credit if there were a better screening system in place before hiring, or to remove bad cops once on the force. The Blue Line is still strong.
30

Following the lead of long-established civil libertarians such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who have been doing the scut work of documenting such injustices and bringing lawsuits about them starting over a half-century before anybody even thought of the Cato Institute.

Sure. I'm a huge fan of the ACLU, and they have a section on their own website devoted to their fight against abuses of civil asset forfeiture. They've been heavily involved in lawsuits over the issue in Texas.

My point, in focusing on libertarians, was that even people we disagree with might, on some issues, be people who are on the right side, and who are worth supporting. If i lived in Kentucky, there's no way i'd vote for Rand Paul, but while he's in the Senate i hope he manages to get his law reforming asset forfeiture passed. And the Cato Institute produces a lot of well-researched studies that provide good information even for people who don't consider themselves libertarians.
32

As Regina Mahone wrote at RH Reality Check, what one sees on videos of conflict with the police is influenced by one’s existing beliefs and biases. For those who believe black bodies are often a threat and that police are generally a force for good, it may be easy to look at a video like the one of Lamard and Lateefah Joye and presume they deserve what happened to them, just as the police officer looked at cash in Joye’s pocket and presumed that a black man with a wad of bills must have been up to no good.

The existence of these videos also shows the limits of the popular reform goal of body cameras on police officers, which has been promoted as a solution in Ferguson, Missouri and in New York City. Even with bystanders obviously filming police on cell-phone cameras, officers seem perfectly comfortable pocketing a man’s cash, punching a teenager, or putting a man in a chokehold. Video of Officer Sean Williams shooting John Crawford III in an Ohio Walmart was not enough to even get an indictment.

Video evidence alone is not enough to make change happen. It is a start, as it brings the reality of the day-to-day impunity with which the police often act home to people who are rarely victims of such actions. But more is required of us than expressions of shock.

Without action, the videos can too often function purely as spectacle, piquing our shock and anger and for a moment before we pass on to the next story, the next YouTube clip, return to our daily lives. For many of us, the reality shown on those video clips will never happen to ourselves or to those we love, and so it is easy to express outrage and assume that the existence of the video means justice will come. Some of us have the luxury of forgetting that black lives have been devalued in this country for centuries.

Between 2007 and 2010, out of approximately 200,000 encounters that did not result in an arrest, 63 percent of people stopped and frisked by the BPD were African American. Only 24 percent of the city’s population is black.

Additionally, the study found, stop-and-frisk instances were most likely to occur in the minority-dense neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan.

Let me get some other dopers take on something I've noticed over the years. From watching a lot of arrest videos on YouTube and in news stories, etc. does it seem to anyone else like cops seem to ALWAYS make black people, man, woman or child, completely lie down on the ground to be taken into custody whereas with whites, it often seems ok to them to have them just get on their knees? I'm not talking EVERY time. Obviously there are cases where they make whites get on the ground too, but it seems twhenever they only allow the subject get on their knees, that subject is usually, if not always, white. Or, at least, non-black.

I'm neutral about the single omnibus thread idea, but appreciate the discussion (but that has more to do with the functionality of the board's setup here and being kinda unwieldy).

"even if a full and fair and complete investigation in the Ferguson case were to find that the officer did not violate any police regulation and did not violate the law..."

Weel (think broad Scots accent), these to things are incompatible: it cannot be a full and fair and complete investigation and find out the officer didn't violate any departmental regulation. There's no evidence thus far to indicate he didn't violate the law to at best a criminally negligent degree. Of course, if the accused were not a police officer but some other party who had a right to confront kid about being in the middle of the street -- or about taking X smoking materials from the convenience store and giving the intimidating stink eye and step toward the manager who tried to lock the doorknuckleheaded motherfucker that he was)(but remember that the cop evidently didn't know about that incident as of when he told the kids to get out of the street), -- the prosecutor wouldn't spend weeks and weeks/months on a grand jury investigation and indictment. The not-ham-sandwich equivalent individual would've been facing charges within a matter of days.

The process of indicting law enforcement for anything (and they almost invariably are declared not guilty of criminal charges, regardless of the overwhelming evidence) is a very scary thing to the institutional organisms whose sole purpose is to survive and thrive. The sad thing is that we are supposed to be grateful that any of them are EVER prosecuted ... that they have something less than absolute (judicial and prosecutorial level) immunity.
40

Because civil and criminal forfeiture require a judicial decison, and administrative forfeiture can be challenged, at which point it has to stop and a judicial forfeiture proceeding begin

I'm not sure if this is really the reason, or it's more that the action in civil forfeiture is directed against the property itself, not the individual. The individual owner is a third party in the suit. Since the action is against property, the burden of proof is lower, probable rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. Conveniently, no conviction or even charges of a crime are necessary to conduct the asset seizure.
41

There's no evidence thus far to indicate he didn't violate the law to at best a criminally negligent degree.

Whatever one thinks of the Ferguson case, this is a rather problematic formulation, in my opinion.

There is also no evidence to indicate that i didn't violate the law yesterday. But our criminal justice system requires more than that; if i'm to be convicted, it requires positive proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that i DID violate the law.
43

Nope. They have always been this way. If you were black, Puerto Rican or poor. There was never any recourse. No one believed us when we complained about the treatment we were receiving. Or they didn't care. Or blamed us.

The only difference is the video proof. And even with the video proof, people still blame us. Or don't care.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kimstu

The ACLU: Protecting your civil liberties from the government, without wasting time on self-aggrandizing government-bashing anti-tax "libertarian theater", since 1920.

According to a study from ProPublica, young black males are a whopping 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police than young white males.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

Any comments on this study? Is this surprising to anyone? Any problems with the data (other than that there's not a whole lot of it)?

Not surprising. I wonder if things are getting worse or better, though. And it would be nice to see it broken down by state. It's also interesting to note that of the people killed by black police officers, almost 80% are black.

But there can be no doubt that we have, somehow, created a society where young black men are seen as a threat. How we undo that, I just don't know.
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